President Barack Obama told Jewish donors to his re-election campaign this week that Israel and the United States must assess the new Middle East with “fresh eyes.”
“Both the United States and Israel are going to have to look at this new landscape with fresh eyes,” Obama said June 20 at a Washington event that charged a minimum $25,000 per couple. “It’s not going to be sufficient for us just to keep on doing the same things we’ve been doing and expect somehow that things are going to work themselves out. We’re going to have to be creative and we’re going to have to be engaged.”
Obama said Israel is the United States’ “closest ally” and that he was committed to Israel facing the challenges “from a position of strength,” noting the closeness between the two countries’ defense establishments and his increase in defense assistance to Israel. — jta